This invention relates generally to cooking appliances, and, more particularly, to methods and apparatus for assembling cooking appliances and controlling gas flow of cooking appliances.
Gas fired stoves, ovens, and ranges typically include one or more gas burners, and a main gas line coupled to the gas burners to providing fuel to the gas burners. At least some known cooking appliances include a solenoid valve to control the gas flow to the individual burners. These known cooking appliances include solenoids which require continuous power to control the flow of gas to the gas burners. Specifically, these known solenoids include an armature positionable in an open position and a closed position. To energize these solenoids, an electrical current is provided to the solenoid to produce a magnetic force to keep the armature in the open position, thus allowing gas to flow to the gas burner. When the electrical current is removed from the solenoid, the solenoid is de-energized, and a spring pushes the armature back to the closed position to block the gas flow. As such, the solenoid is continuously energized to supply gas to the gas burners.
Additionally, in these known cooking appliances a plurality of gas burners are typically used simultaneously. As such, each solenoid associated with the gas burners in use is energized at the same time. An undesirable high power supply is required to energize each solenoid to control the gas flow to the multiple burners, which increases the operating cost of the cooking appliance. In addition, as the temperature of the solenoid increases during the extended energizing of the solenoids, the heat is transferred to the gas flowing through the solenoid, thus decreasing the density of the gas flowing to the burners and lowering the output rate of the burners. Moreover, as a result of the increase in temperature of the solenoids, the solenoid coil resistance is also increased, thereby decreasing the electrical current and thus reducing the magnetic field produced by the coil. This may lead to de-activation of the solenoid, thus shutting off the flow of gas to the burner.